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Prepare to pay to park on Saturdays in Lewisburg

People who drive in downtown Lewisburg should be prepared to pay to park on Saturdays.

LEWISBURG, Pa. — Downtown Lewisburg is a busy place filled with shops and restaurants. There are plenty of parking spaces, each with a meter in front of it. But frequent shoppers know the meters are only enforced on weekdays — until now, that is.

"The public uses it, so why not increase the cost to them by enforcing something that has existed for a really long period of time?" Mayor Kendy Alvarez asked.

Mayor Alvarez says parking meters here have always required change Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but no one has enforced the rule on weekends for quite some time.

Starting this weekend, drivers will get tickets if they do not feed the meters on Saturdays.

But why now?

"Increased costs. Everything costs more and the maintenance of our roads and our parking lots and even the parking meters," Alvarez said.

"It's definitely, I would say, a shock to some of us who have been here for a while just because there hasn't been any kind of enforcement on it," Brian Snyder said.

Snyder works at Jordanna Adams Boutique and says many downtown employees use the meters too. It costs 25 cents to park for 45 minutes. Parking tickets are $10 if you pay within the first 24 hours.

And if you do get a parking ticket, you can stop by one business for a sweet treat.

"Parking ticket equals cookie; it's as simple as that," Dan MacArthur said.

Dan MacArthur owns The Cookie Dude. He sees a lot of people get parking tickets, so if people show him their ticket, he gives them a free cookie.

"They're so bummed, and they have such a bad idea of what downtown is, and we wanted to change that a little bit," MacArthur said.

Lewisburg does have two free municipal parking lots, so if you really do not want to pay, you can try to find a spot in one of the free lots.

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